About ICHA

Last Updated: Tuesday, 7th of June 2016

The International Center for Humanitarian Affairs) strives to create an appropriate and effective knowledge management framework that synthesizes multiple information technologies to collect, analyze, and, manage information and knowledge for supporting decision making in humanitarian action, disaster relief and improving community resilience.

The framework so developed is intended to help identify, specify and quantify information needs, track status of disaster scenarios and provide policy makers and practitioners with efficient and sustainable recommendations based on past experience and research based evidence.

ICHA is a knowledge hub which focuses on generating data and information through action based research that is relevant to communities dealing with situations that call for humanitarian, resilience building and development action.

Mission & Goal

To contribute extensive knowledge that will help alleviate human suffering through building safe, resilient and sustainable communities.

Through extensive and high quality research training and publications coupled with strategic partnerships, ICHA’s short term goal is to be a Knowledge Node not only for the KRCS, but a national and regional hub for knowledge on humanitarian affairs, improved community resilience and developmental issues.

How the institution got started

Over the years, the KRCS (Kenya Red Cross Society) has been able to develop a rich knowledge database on humanitarian, development action and systems sustainability. The KRCS appreciates that it is only through history, analysis of trend, knowledge generation and management that we can accumulate foresight to effectively plan and prepare for humanitarian, disaster relief, mitigation and lifting millions out of livelihood vulnerabilities.

In the past few decades, actors in humanitarian relief have since increased and diversified to include Government, UN agencies, Development Partners,International and National Non-Governmental Organizations, Civil Society Organizations and most recently the private sector and even private individuals. Indeed, the advent of proliferation of actors in the humanitarian relief sector is an extremely positive development as it strengthens the course towards alleviating human suffering and vulnerability.

However, such growth and diversity is not without challenges. The major challenge has been and continues to be the lack of a harmonized, synchronized and well-coordinated knowledge base; this in turn constrains effective utilization of information especially during humanitarian, disaster reliefoperations, and resilient building interventions. It is against this backdrop, that having identified the need to ensure efficient and effective knowledge and information management, that the KRCS established the International Center for Humanitarian Affairs (( hereinafter referred to as ICHA).